“Ah, yes, it is true,” Ammu began, answering her question. “The term ‘gargoyle’ is highly misleading. The creature in this image and the one from the plane are both aligned with the forces of evil, but their natures are not the same, and therefore their preferred appearance is not the same.
“The beings of the other dimension are not limited, as we are, to a single shape, but can adopt many forms, changing their appearance even to those who can see through the eyes of the unconscious mind. This is why Sketch, here, is so very important. He sees the true nature of things, so that even if something evil were to disguise itself as something beautiful, fooling the rest of us, Sketch would see it as it truly is.”
“Way to go, Sketch!” Rush said, grinning at him and thrusting a friendly elbow at his shoulder.
Sketch beamed with pride. Maybe being able to see things that everyone else couldn’t, wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“The spirits that battled here on Earth during the days of Alexander the Great were of many, many forms, varying widely in shape, from animals very like those that exist naturally in our world, to fantastical and oftentimes horrific creatures, whose alignment with the forces of good or evil was reflected in their natural appearance.
“What we are summoning today was known as a zairmyangura in the ancient Persian tongue. The creature on the airplane would have been called a spengaghra. But I suppose that ‘gargoyle’ is as good a term as any for either one, in this day and age.”
“OK,” Sam said, dragging both syllables out unnecessarily. “Little sorry I asked, to be honest, but thanks for the history lesson.”
“If you want the short version, do not ask a professor,” Ammu replied, grinning at her. “Or so my students have told me.”
“My bad,” she agreed. “So are we doing this thing or what?”
“Indeed,” Ammu said. “If everyone is ready?”
“I have the pattern,” Kaitlyn announced, and Ammu retrieved the chalk from his bag, opening its protective container and handing it to her.
“Here,” Mackenzie said, choosing her spot while Kaitlyn sketched the basic circle on the floor as a reference.
Sam stood in the circle and gave Ammu a silent thumbs-up.
“I can hear it,” Daniel said. “I’m not gonna enjoy singing it, I can tell you right now, but I have it.”
“Sketch?” Sam said, getting his attention. “Same as before, OK? Only if you say it is what it is.”
Sketch nodded.
“OK then,” Sam said, taking a deep breath. “Counting us in. One… two… one, two, three, four.”
Kaitlyn traced the first rune on the floor as Mackenzie started moving in strange jerks and pops around the circle, with Daniel intoning an ominous chant in a minor key that made Rush’s skin crawl.
“OK, this is creepy,” Rush whispered to Sketch, who only nodded in return. Today’s summoning was making Sketch doubly glad that Rush was back. Even Staff Sergeant Miller, usually the picture of stony impassivity during the summoning sessions, looked a bit unraveled by the scene.
“It is appropriate for it to feel uneasy, even frightening,” Ammu murmured. “Fear is one of the most primal ways in which the unconscious mind warns us of danger, and we are dealing now with forces that would harm us at any opportunity, make no mistake.”
“Fantastic,” Rush said. “No pressure, right?”
As the circle neared completion, Sam began the countdown for Mackenzie. “Five… four… three… two… one… now!” Sam raised her arms, splaying her fingers wide just as before and shoving both hands toward the window, causing a tiny portal to appear in the middle of the room on the other side.
“OK, now that was cool,” Rush muttered, but Sketch didn’t answer him, focusing with his mind’s eye on the creature that awaited them on the other side of the portal, and soon enough, Rush felt it for himself.
He almost reeled backward in disgust, but he remembered their earliest attempt at summoning the gryphon, when his fear broke Sam’s concentration and closed the portal, so he forced himself to stand firm even though every fiber of his body was telling him to run. The… thing… on the other side was already clawing at the tiny hole, sniffing at it eagerly, ready to hunt. Rush felt it as it became bound to his will, writhing and screaming on the other side of the portal, its initial curiosity devolving into rage.
It felt grimy and greasy and dingy and dark, making Rush wish he could shower right where he stood, but Sketch gave Sam the thumbs up, signaling her to let it through. It was vicious and cruel, but it was what it was, and the portal opened wide, vomiting the creature into the stark, white room.
It hovered for a moment, getting its bearings, seeking and finding Rush’s essence through the glass that stood between them. It wanted to move toward him, but Rush held it in place—forcing it to land and sit quiescently on the floor—his mind straining against the creature’s dark intentions.
“Good?” Rush asked through clenched teeth, one hand raised in a posture of both control and defense, pushing against the creature even as it pushed against him.
“I have no idea,” Miller admitted. “One second. Can you keep it from absorbing the paint?”
“I can try,” Rush said. The others had told him about the targeting problem, and he held the creature in his mind as best he could, ordering it firmly not to respond to its surroundings. “OK. Ready.”
Miller pressed a button, and a fine mist of neon orange paint burst forth from several nozzles mounted along the legs of the turret, coating the creature fully. The creature narrowed its eyes and snarled through the glass, but it did not absorb the paint.
“Brilliant,” Miller whispered. “OK, hold it right there. Steady… steady…”
The creature eyed the turret as Miller angled the gun slightly to the right and then down, lining up the shot on a viewfinder mounted in the remote.
With a sudden explosion of sound, two things happened instantaneously. The first was that the gun fired several rounds directly through the creature’s chest, the bullets slicing through it viciously and embedding themselves in the far wall.
The second thing, however, was entirely unexpected.
The moment the gun fired, the creature roared in triumph and broke free of Rush’s mental grasp. Apparently unharmed, despite having been shot clean through by enough firepower to have severed any normal blood-and-bone creature in half, it thrust itself into the air with a single downstroke of its wings, absorbed the orange paint with an angry shimmer, and then hurled itself directly toward the bullet-proof window, colliding against it with a resounding thunk and starting to push its way in, beating its wings vigorously and thrusting with its hind legs to add to its momentum.